How It Happens
by elinorradical
Summary: Set between Season 2 Episodes 6 and 7, how Alisha and Simon got together.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

They all go out for a drink to celebrate being done with community service, except everyone has no idea what the fuck they're doing with their lives. Super powers and dead probation workers and fuck all else. Curtis has Nikki, but everybody else? Didn't even merit discussion. Curtis was flirting with his new girlfriend. Kelly and Nathan were drunk bickering an hour into the evening. And Alisha, the most beautiful girl in the place, was tipsy and awkwardly latched onto a confused Simon.

"I wish we'd spent more time together," Alisha shouted over the music as she fidgeted and smiled too big. A kind of forced smile, because she was nervous. She wanted this plan to work.

Simon nursed his beer and mumbled an agreement. He wondered if this meant they would never see each other again, kindness right at the end like an apology. People do that sometimes, when they realize they've never spoken to you and never will and suddenly feel bad for it. Though Alisha had spoken to him more lately.

Before they even left the community center Alisha had decided to drink too much and get Simon to walk her home. Basically this was her plan the minute they decided to go for a drink. It was just waiting now, and drinking. And trying to have an actual conversation with present Simon in a loud crowded bar.

"Maybe we could, you know, spend time together now that we don't have a curfew," she continued.

"I'd like that," he responded, still not sure if this was an actual offer or Alisha attempting to be nice because they'd never see each other again.

"What are you doing tomorrow?" she leaned sideways toward him. A curl brushed against his cheek. She felt dizzy, drunker than she thought she was. Maybe she'd get him to walk her home soon. She took another a long sip of her drink.

"Thought I might look for a job." He inched away and smoothed down his hair.

When would that tic go away, she wondered. "When you are done with that, maybe we could watch a movie or something." She was slurring. She was asking a boy out, something she had never done. They had to chase, that was half the fun, but maybe he already had chased her? He went back in time for her, he saved her. Or he would anyway. After her love changed him or whatever bullshit. Time-travel was twisting her head around.

Simon's mouth sort of made gasping fish motions as he stammered agreement.

It wasn't smooth or charming or mystery man time-travel future-Simon; it was the opposite. But she sort of liked it. "Do you like me, Simon?" she leaned even closer. "Because I like you."

He just stared, those huge blue eyes, that stare. "I think you've had too much to drink." He sounded almost scared.

"Maybe I just like you," she scooted even closer. Dangerously close.

He inched away again. Of course he did. Her skin was still A Problem for him, just like it was for everyone else. "Maybe I should go home," she slurred, suddenly feeling weepy and tired.

"I'll—do you want help getting home?"

She nodded. Her perfect plan.

As he walked her home she shivered and hinted until he offered his jacket, carefully draped it over her shoulders.

"Thanks," she smiled at him and for a second he forgot about everything and felt completely lit up. Alisha, sloshed or not, smiling like that him was a highlight of his year. He wished he could film it.

His eyes when she smiled at him looked, for a moment, completely unconflicted. That was the thing she missed about future him, that he seemed certain about everything, about her, about what needed to be done. Even if he was sometimes an idiot, he wasn't—what was it?—he wasn't turned inside out with self-doubt, with worrying about everything, the way Simon generally was. Like, half the time real life Simon seemed so worried about how he should respond that his twitchiness was weirder than whatever weird thing his first impulse was. Or something? But maybe that had been changing. Whatever, he didn't look like he was overthinking it just then. He looked like he was happy. Happy to be with her.

She slipped her arm through his. "This is nice," she offered.

"Did you tell anyone you were leaving?" he asked, sounding concerned. "I didn't."

"No, but it doesn't matter. They'll be fine."

"They might be worried. They'll be wondering where we are."

She laughed, kind of meanly. "Who, Nathan? Does he even remember our names? And Curtis is so busy with Nikki he won't even notice we've gone." She was surprised at how bitter she sounded. Simon would notice if somebody left without telling him. Would she? Probably not. But… "I'll text Kelly when I get home," she conceded. "What time d'you want to meet up tomorrow?"

He furrowed his brow. "Whenever you'd like." He looked preoccupied.

"How 'bout eight then?" She was tempted to say they could get something to eat first, but she didn't want to push it.

Simon frowned even more deeply, something she couldn't make sense of with her alcohol-drowned brain. "Please don't take this the wrong way, but, um, are you actually Alisha?"

She glared at him, even though she understood the logic. "Monkey slut," she snapped. "You know, I might just like you. Might not have anything to do with shapeshifters or powers or any of that bullshit."

He blushed. "I just…wanted to be sure…"

"Yeah," she said softly. "That's me up ahead," she pointed to her building and they walked in silence to her door. She played with the buttons on his jacket, hesitating to give it back. "Do you still want to meet up tomorrow?"

"Of course," he said too quickly.

"Do you have my number?" It occurred to her that she may not have given it to him.

He nodded and she handed his jacket back.

"Text me tomorrow then, yeah?"

And he nodded again. "Goodnight."

Impulsively she threw her arms around him and hugged him tight. He stood froze in response. "Goodnight," she said, and ran inside.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

**The content in brackets [ ] is from season 2, episode 6, written by Howard Overman. Most of the events in that episode were undone because Curtis rewound time, but I felt some variation of those Simon/Alisha scenes eventually happened, regardless of the circumstances.**

It's weird when they hang out. Well, awkward. It's been a week and a half since the first time they went to a movie together, and it's only maybe beginning to be sort of comfortable. Simon can't quite make sense of what is happening. Alisha texts him every day. They go to the pub where she's gotten a job and have a drink, or sometimes to a different pub. They even went to lunch once and dinner another time, and he bought her meal both times and she smiled at him. She asks him loads of questions about everything, and pours out her life story and all her thoughts and feelings and fears in a manner so open and unexpected that he doesn't know what to make of it. It's so sudden, this, well, intimacy of the emotional nature. She's obviously self-conscious, fidgeting and picking at beer bottle labels as she tells personal stories. It's like she's forcing herself to open up and he can't understand why. But he doesn't question it. Instead he tries to listen intently and ask thoughtful, sensitive questions, and to reassure her through her insecurities, to be a very wonderful friend. Because he does like Alisha and he is quietly thrilled at this closeness, even if he doesn't understand it. When she asks, he tells his own stories carefully, and she always responds better than he could have hoped. Sometimes he thanks her, tells her how glad he is that they're becoming friends, gives her a compliment he'd always thought but never said, like about how strong she is, how difficult it must be for her and how he admires how she hasn't let her power break her, things like that. Sometimes when he says nice things to her she cries a little, but her mascara never runs and she never explains why she's crying.

Sometimes they watch movies he likes in his bedroom, his parents overly welcoming and excited and generally embarrassing to him. Alisha is surprisingly polite to them, to his noisy little sister as well. He can hear them hovering by his door, listening in, can almost feel the hope they're radiating. _Please let this beautiful, obviously popular girl like our son and make him normal._ He thinks their desperation shows. They don't even seem slightly worried that she might not be romantically interested, might be seeing lots of boys, might be doing this on a dare, might break his heart in any number of ways. Not that all this is true, but he thinks they at least ought to be concerned a bit. They ought to be cautious for him, but instead they're over eager and it's uncomfortable for all. They don't ask him to keep the door open, and his father winks at him and it is terrible. They don't ask questions, except, "Is Alisha coming round for tea?" nearly every day, optimism overflowing and making him queasy. He wants to shake them, make them see what's obvious: nothing is happening. It is a friendship, a very nice one, if a little heart wrenching for him. Of course he'd like it to be more—he's always liked her—but why embarrass himself again? Why ruin a good thing? Alisha plus Simon was not the sort of thing that happened, and he knows it. Other girls might like him, he decides, but he knew better than to overshoot. He knows that sometimes girls like to have guy friends who they feel safe with, and in that safety they might be open or even affectionate. But he knows that if you read something more into it, you'll be disappointed and embarrass the both of you and maybe the girl will no longer feel safe and will not even want to be friends. He knows he is exactly the sort of guy who ends up as a safe, nonthreatening friend to a beautiful girl like Alisha, and he tries to accept that and tamp down any feelings this closeness stirs up. After she leaves, he often smells her perfume on his clothes, and most nights he can't help but think of her before he falls asleep. He tries to keep her out of his head when he wanks, but she drifts in, and he feels guilty and resolves to find someone appropriate to like.

Alisha is hoping this bonding is making Simon feel at ease and get the sense that she could like him. Admittedly it probably seems to him this came out of nowhere, and she's not sure how she'd explain her ever-increasing interest if he asks. Thankfully, he doesn't. He follows her lead and does not ask for more, and it's clear that he doesn't think of her as more than a friend, which kills her. Occasionally she catches him staring at her and she knows he wants her, knows that look in his eyes because it's the same as when he takes off her clothes. Or, the same as the look he will have when he eventually takes off her clothes. Whatever. She snuggles up to him on his little bed when they watch sci-fi movies that she doesn't care about. She puts her head on his chest and listens to his heartbeat through his shirt. She tries to show interest, but it's not getting through to him. She thinks maybe it will go slow, and she hates that, but what can you do? She eyes his lips and his hands and misses him acutely. She stops by his future flat too often. Sometimes she sleeps there, even though it only makes her sadder.

Tonight they agree to meet at the pub after her shift ends. She's working lunchtime to seven or eight usually, three or four days a week. It's not the best shift in terms of tips, but she's new. On the plus side, she has most of her night to hang out with Simon afterward. He's got a new job, fewer hours than hers and less money probably, an entry-level thing at a film editing company. To be honest, mostly he gets coffee and makes copies and gets yelled at by people who are no more skilled than he is but don't have criminal records and have experience. But he's always done by five and has evenings free for Alisha.

Of course, Simon thinks that having all your evenings free for someone who is beyond out of your league is depressing, so tonight he gets to the pub early and looks for someone more appropriate to maybe chat up. Or at least say hello to. While Alisha is pulling pints, he sits with Kelly and Nathan, who have been recruited to help him meet girls. Nathan is loud and useless and discouraging, and quickly finds two girls to flirt with all by himself. Kelly is more sympathetic and encouraging, and shortly before Alisha's shift ends, she points out a quiet girl in the corner by herself, fiddling with her phone and looking nervous. She's lovely in a subdued way, her hair long and dark and shielding her face like a curtain, her dress floral and flattering but not revealing. "Smile at her," Kelly commands, and Simon does, and her smile is shy but aimed at him. A small pep talk later, Simon goes over and introduces himself. Her name is Sarah and she was supposed to meet a blind date here but was probably stood up. She's a university student. And she tells him, while looking at her lap, that she thinks he has nice eyes.

It is at this moment Alisha appears, done with her shift and looking less than happy. The weather is just beginning to get cold, and Alisha's outfit acknowledges this only in that she wears skin-tight pants instead of tiny shorts. Her top is low-cut and her hot pink bra straps show, along with ample cleavage. She looks flawless and formidable as she puts a proprietary hand on Simon's shoulder. "Who's this?" she asks Simon, in the manner of a possessive girlfriend.

Simon introduces Sarah, oblivious and grinning. Sarah is not oblivious however, and stammers an apology, says she misunderstood. She asks Simon without a hint of offense, "Is this your girlfriend?" as though she'd been in the wrong to think his friendliness flirtation.

"No!" Simon exclaims so quickly that Alisha visibly winces. "I don't have a girlfriend. We're just friends. I…uh, you don't have boyfriend or…?"

"No," Sarah answers, relieved.

"But we do have plans," Alisha says tightly, hand squeezing Simon's shoulder. "If you'll excuse us, I'm starving. Simon?"

Simon turns his head to face her for the first time since she walked up. "Actually, could we get dinner tomorrow? I thought I'd stay her with Sarah a bit." At Alisha's crushed expression he adds, "I think Kelly might like to get something." They glance back to Kelly, who is talking to an unsavory looking bloke with a shaved head. "And she might need saving from herself."

"But you and I had plans," Alisha objects, more upset than she knows she should be. Simon wrinkles his brow and stares her, waiting for more explanation.

"Jesus," she says, shaking her head and finally letting go of him. "I'm so stupid. I'm sorry." She laughs, and a tear escapes. She turns to Sarah, "Sorry. Misunderstanding. You two have a good night." With that she bolts out of the pub.

Alisha tells herself she's being an idiot. Of course Simon would find some sweet, simple girl. Of course he didn't get that she liked him. She replays every mean thing she remembers saying to him, and knows there were probably twice as many mean things she didn't remember but that he did. How she'd reacted ages ago when he asked her out to pizza, her disdain, then calling him a freak. Except it wasn't really ages ago. It was less than two months. How could she explain going so quickly fury at him asking her out to tearful jealousy when he asked out somebody else? Humiliating. _You fall in love with me._ Yeah, she was kind of there. Every time he was kind to her, every considerate word, every day, she was falling in love with him. Once she started looking at him, really looking, after she met future-him, she could see the parts of him that would become…future-him. She was falling in love with him and it was supposed to change him but he didn't even fucking see it. He'd lied, she thought, future-him lied. Because she was feeling all these stupid feelings and trying to show him and it wasn't happening, and what the fuck else was she supposed to do? Without thinking, she heads toward the flat.

Simon stares after her a minute as she storms out, then looks back at Sarah, who is clearly stunned. "I don't know," he starts to explain, and then thinks, I shouldn't be here talking to this stranger, I should be talking to Alisha. He's trying to put together the pieces in his mind. "I have to go," he says, and runs out after her. He calls out but she's too far ahead. And she's not heading toward her place. He can't imagine where she's going, and without thinking, he goes invisible and runs after.

He follows her all the way into a weird flat, up this elevator. Alisha's on the bed, crying. He looks around and sees…his stuff. Stuff that decorates his room, then all these pictures, these still, strange clocks. He tries to add up this place, Alisha's friendship, her reaction in the pub, and it doesn't fit together. She's holding a picture. Of the two of them.

["When was that taken?" he asks, visible again.

She gasps.

"Where did you get that?"

"Someone gave it to me," and she holds it to her chest, to her heart.

"Who?"

She wrinkles her brow, doesn't answer. Can't answer.

"What is this place?" he demands.

"The guy in the mask… He lived here."

Simon looks around. Already half-knowing but not. Not believing what it has to be. He looks back at her. "Who is he?"

Her eyes apologize. Her mascara is smeared all over. She tilts her head. "It's you."]

He looks around, trying to make sense of it. Sits down the edge of the platform below the mattress. "What…how is that possible?"

She sits on the edge of the bed, hands him to picture. "He's you from the future. You traveled back in time to make everything happen like it's supposed to. To protect us. All those times you saved us." Alisha looks down, hugs her knees into her chest. "Saved me."

"What happened to him?" Simon asks, knowing already.

"That video game guy, he shot him. I mean, you. Future-you. He was going to kill me, and you jumped down at the last minute and saved me." She looks in his eyes. "You died for me."

Again, he already knows, but asks. "Why? He had to know he'd die if he jumped down then. Why didn't he stop it some other way?"

She twists her mouth and doesn't answer right away. They're both silent a long time as he stares at the picture of them in Vegas. We look happy, he thinks. He thinks that he never smiles like that in photographs. He looks back her, at the photo.

["You came back, so that we could be together in the future," she says. He looks at her and tries to make sense of it.

"You…and me…we're together?" he says, nodding, a question and a statement both. Not looking at her.

She looks faraway. "Yeah, we were, and we will be again." He catches her gaze and she almost gives a tiny reassuring smile. "I hope we will be."

He searches her face. Alisha wants…him? It's the happiest and saddest moment of his life so far. She wants him, and it's because of this other version of himself, and also he's going to die to get her attention.

She does smile a bit this time. "You think you're surprised? Imagine being me!"

He's hurt, but maybe she's teasing.

"You're still you, but you're different," she says, sounding sort of proud. "You're more confident, and…" She stares right in his eyes. "My power doesn't work on you. You can touch me."

Meaning, you will touch me. He gulps.

He glances between her and the photo and then looks beyond her, at nothing, at this place. "And then I die." Looks down.

"You save my life," she leans in, getting him to look back at her. "You said if you didn't come back and die, you wouldn't become the person you needed to be."

"It's like in Terminator when John Connor sends Kyle Reese back in times so that he can be his father."

She smiles and says gently, "I have no idea what you're talking about."

This right here is maybe the central problem in the premise of "Alisha and Simon fall in love and he becomes a superhero," he thinks.

They look at each other and share a nervous laugh. He puts his head on his hand for a minute.

"You protected us," she insists. "You're like a proper superhero."

"When do I turn into this superhero?"

She shrugs.

"So what happens now?"

"I have no fucking idea," she says and they look away from each other. They're silent.]

Finally he stares at the picture and says, "We look happy."

"I think we will be. I mean, I was, with you."

"Me from the future," he corrects. "After I'm a superhero and immune to your power."

"You who make me feel like it's not my fault that I'm like this," she answers. "You who're nice to me and care about me. You who listen to me and think I'm a worthwhile person, even when maybe I'm not, and tell me I'm beautiful but not just that."

"You are—" he starts to say.

"That's you now, isn't it? I see that in you already, even if you can't jump off building or kiss me yet."

"That's the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me," he says seriously.

She doesn't answer that. "Can we get something to eat?"

He nods, but also feels uncomfortable with the idea of just the two of them, alone with the weight of their future. "Maybe we should see if Nathan or Kelly wants to come."

"Yeah, I'll text them," she says. A buffer, so they can have a break from this relationship-with-destiny thing.

They all meet for pizza. Curtis and Nikki come too, and Kelly's seedy new bald friend. Simon and Alisha sit next to each other and say nothing as Nathan tells ridiculous, disgusting stories that Nikki and Curtis make fun of with no visible impact on his ego. While the others are busy bickering and trying to explain lactose intolerance to Nathan, Simon stares at Alisha, thinking that she actually wants him, and how incredible and touching it is.

[She catches him looking. "You all right?" she whispers.

"Yeah," he nods.

"We'll talk later, yeah?"

"Yeah."]

They share a quiet smile. When she gets up to go to the loo with Kelly, she bats her eyes at him, and his heart lights up. Maybe if Alisha's in love with me, I will feel like a superhero, he thinks.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

_Thanks to everyone following my story! It's so motivating to get a response. The following is a tad more sexual but not too explicit, hopefully._

It takes awhile to feel like they're even sort of maybe actually seeing each other. Simon wants to know everything about his future self, and Alisha's not sure how much she should tell. He researches parkour. He takes a class. Such a geek, Alisha says, but with fondness. It's that fondness that makes him feel like they're maybe dating. They start hugging and cuddling sometimes, then every day. He moves into the flat right away, which his parents are obnoxiously delighted about. His sister asks him if he's moving so he can sleep with his girlfriend. His parents don't even chide her. But for the first him he doesn't snap, "She's not my girlfriend," in response. Even though she's not his girlfriend. Yet.

He has a housewarming party, which is really just Nathan, Kelly, Curtis, Nikki, and Alisha. That very night, Alisha starts sleeping over, and then she's doing it a couple of nights a week, but neither of them discuss this. They sleep with her under the sheet and him on top of it. As it gets colder, she wears gloves sometimes, and they hold hands. They don't tell their friends, but they see each other, alone, every day. He puts his hands around her clothed waist sometimes, and slowly they both touch each other through clothes, but avoid anything explicitly sexual. Sometimes she tries, touches his ass just a little, but stops when he blushes and gets flustered. She doesn't want to rush him.

A month in, she's pretty much the horniest she's maybe ever been and they still haven't even talked about sex. She thinks that they ought to, but she also thinks if she says, "Let's wank off in front of each other," Simon will stammer and look horrified and it will probably move the whole thing backward. She's also pretty much in love, though she hasn't said it yet either.

It's their day off when Simon and Alisha are lying in his bed, cuddling. This is normal for them now, or at least normal-ish. He is fully dressed, a gray shirt with just the very top button undone (and even that had taken her repeated suggestions), black slacks, his socks still on so she can rub her feet against his. She wears a blue tank top, her pink leopard print cardigan, little jean shorts, and big earrings (like always). She lies with her legs on top of his, her head on his chest, his hand on her hair. They're flirting, low voices mumbling pleasant little words. He teases her about how cold she must be when she goes outside dressed like this, and she says he better keep her warm. He runs a hand over her back, the curve of her hip, then his fingers trace her back pockets, and Alisha gets an idea.

"I like it when you touch me like that," she looks up at him through her eyelashes. She thinks that if they could get a little physical, maybe a conversation about sex will unfold naturally, or else be unnecessary altogether. "More please," she says as he spreads his hand over the backside of her tiny jeans.

He squeezes her ass, ever obliging, while looking at her with puppy-dog eyes.

Alisha gestures at her chest and arches a brow. His eyes are all questions and eagerness to please as he reaches up the front of her body and cups her breast. He holds on tightly, like he's afraid she'll take it away.

"Yeah?" he asks unsteadily.

"Yeah," she whispers, and touches his stomach, then rests her palm on his hipbone.

Slowly, she leads him in touching each other through their clothes, Simon eager but obviously nervous. Before long ago she can't stand it, and she touches herself in front of him, without explanation, without shyness, still half-dressed. He watches her, and the way he looks at her is just like future-him. Alisha thinks about what future-him said, how she will teach him exactly what she likes, but from that look in his eyes she knows she won't need to teach him to pay attention to her, because he is already _there_. She looks at his wide-open eyes, so much blue, at his parted lips, and she knows that he would do anything for her, anything to make her happy, to make her feel good.

After she finishes, none too quietly, she collapses next to him. He lifts his arm and she rests her head on his chest. He hasn't even undone another button on his shirt. Their hearts are racing, they're laughing a little, unsure what to say. Simon looks over, overwhelmed with how beautiful she is, and only then does she whisper that she'd like him to do the same. It takes a little coaxing, but he does, much to Alisha's delight. She looks at him with desire and affection, and for a second him thinks maybe even love.

He finishes and catches her staring at him, smiling. "Thank you," he says, looking serious. There's a line between his eyebrows.

She snorts at him. "'Thank you'? What are you thanking me for?"

Simon frowns. "For all this. For looking at me like you were just then. Like…you truly see me, and you like me for it." He thinks but doesn't say, _For doing something that makes me feel like you want me, and not him. Not me in the future, but me right now._

It's so sweet she almost can't stand it. She thinks about thanking him for all the things she's thought about, but she can't, not yet, maybe will say one day, so she sits up. "You're very welcome, yeah?" she says kindly. "Any time. Because, you know," she traces aimlessly on the sheet, "I do see you, and I do like you for it."

He looks at her adoringly and makes her feel a little mushier than she wants to just then. "I'm going to take a shower," she says and slides her shorts and panties off, then hops out of bed. Pointedly walks slowly so he'll admire her ass, and looks back at him over her shoulder to see his eyes even wider than before.

After she gets out of the shower she finds Simon at the sink, meticiously washing spots out of her shirt, her green lace bra slightly damp and hanging up on a rack beside him. She hadn't noticed, she realizes, that when he came, a little got on her clothes. She raises her eyebrows at him when he turns his head to look at her.

"They were dirty, I didn't want them to stain," he explains, sounding embarrassed.

"You didn't want me walking around with your cum on my shirt for all the world to see?" she says, relishing his blush in response.

He ducks his head down and goes back to intently scrubbing the stain out.

"Why are you embarrassed?" she teases and wraps her arms around his waist from behind. "I'm flirting with you."

"I've never done anything like that. It was different, when I had sex before. We were nervous. I mean, it was very good before. But with you, it's…uninhibited. It's wonderful. It's the most wonderful thing I've ever…" He pauses. "Is it okay? Everything we, I, did just now? I don't want you to feel…degraded or…pressured…or…"

"It's more than okay, Simon," she laughs. "I enjoyed it, yeah? I'm not degraded, not offended, nothing bad at all. I got exactly what I wanted. And I want to do it again."

He gulps.

"And I'm a bit turned on by you taking care of my clothes like this. It's nice to have a boyfriend who'll look after my things."

Simon wrings out her shirt and hangs it up, drains the water from the sink, turns to face her. He looks serious, but like he has a smile underneath, like he's trying not to break out into a grin. "Am I your boyfriend?"

Alisha takes a step back. Her turn to be embarrassed now. "It just slipped out!"

"You want me to be your boyfriend," he says, smiling broadly, delighted. Then he teases, "You fancy me."

"Shut up!"

"You really like me." His eyes light up.

"Not if you keep going on about it!" she protests, and starts to stomp off, but he grabs her by the hips, digs his fingers into the towel and turns her to face him.

"I like you too," he says earnestly. "I am your boyfriend, if that's what you want. You just never said before."

"Yeah, that's what I want, just don't make a big deal about it," she answers, trying to sound haughty and disinterested and mostly, she thinks, sounding like a brat.

He stares at her face until she looks back at him. "What?" she demands.

"Do you want to do it again right now?" he asks carefully.

Alisha smiles, nods her head.

Some time later, when they are both done and exhausted and cuddling through bedsheets, he notices the sweat on Alisha's brow, and then the sweat on his own. They smell like sex, he thinks.

"You just took a shower," he says apologetically.

"I give up on trying to be clean around you tonight," she answers. "I think I should just borrow some pajamas and stay filthy till tomorrow." She's stayed over before, of course, but it had always seemed like an accident. She'd fallen asleep during a movie, or they'd stayed up so late talking that it seemed pointless to go home, or they'd curled up as much as possible through the sheets and one of them had drifted off and the other hadn't wanted to move. But now she was staying over on purpose.

Simon gets up and finds a t-shirt and pajama bottoms for her. He decides to go for it. "Maybe tomorrow you can bring some clothes and things to keep here? So you don't have to steal my pajamas next time you stay," he says with as much bravado as he can manage.

"All right then," she yawns. He marvels that he's done it—sex, more or less, with Alisha, who is now his girlfriend and is in fact bringing some things over to keep at his place. "You should get us some take-away," she says. "I'm starving."

Simon gets dressed and buys them each a curry from a shop two blocks down. He does not stop smiling for the rest of the night.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

They are completely caught up in each other for the next week, giddy and thrilled. Simon sees Alisha every night, every moment they can manage together, and they text constantly the rest of the time. They ignore everyone and everything that isn't work or one another. One night, when Alisha texts him that she's going to work, along with some X-rated suggestions about what they might do after work, Simon finally takes a look at the stream of messages from their friends. Nathan's have taken on a frantic tone. Guiltily, before he goes to see Alisha in the pub that evening, he texts Nathan and Kelly to meet him there.

"I thought you were dead!" Nathan yells when he sees Simon. "I've been calling and calling and you never pick up anymore. I knew you weren't finishing with me all cold like that, and so I had to ask myself, 'What the fuck is he doing'? And you know what I came up with, you twat?"

"That I had a job and a new flat and possibly a girlfriend?" Simon says plainly, just to set up whatever Nathan will say.

"Of course not! That's not even remotely likely. I thought you were dead or kidnapped somewhere. Seriously mate, I checked the papers."

Kelly sits at the bar. "He did actually. When none of us had heard from you."

"It's only been a week," Simon frowns.

"That's the longest it's ever been!" Nathan wails.

"You working a lot?" Kelly asks.

"It's just a few days a week," he says like an apology. When Nathan stares at him blankly he adds, "I work at a film editing company. Remember?"

"Why'd you throw in that bit about a girlfriend if all the rest is true?" Nathan squints. "Is there another dead girl in your freezer?"

Just then, Alisha appears from the back with a crate of glasses. She and Simon exchange half-smiles before it occurs to Simon that maybe she doesn't want everyone to know. Maybe he is her boyfriend when they're alone, not in front of other people. Maybe he should keep his mouth shut.

But as soon as he thinks that, he also thinks, Kelly might be hearing this. Oh, sh—

"You and her?" Kelly exclaims. She doubletakes at Alisha, "You and him?"

"What?" Nathan yells.

Alisha shrugs, "Yeah."

"Yeah what?" Nathan demands.

"They're together," Kelly explains.

Nathan glares at Alisha and calls, "What's the password?"

"Monkey slut," she yells back, too loudly, so the bar silences for a minute. When everyone goes back to the usual drone she snarls, "Will everyone please stop thinking I'm a shapeshifter?"

It occurs to Simon that maybe he was subconsciously avoiding his friends because of what it might to do the tiny thing that was blooming between him and Alisha.

"Is there mind control involved?" Nathan demands of Alisha.

"No! We're just seeing each other, in a normal, no-powers-involved, like-each-other kind of way," Alisha exclaims.

Of course, Simon thinks, it's not a tiny little thing anymore. It's sort of a real thing. She likes him. She said so.

"There is nothing normal about you with him," says Nathan.

Thinking of about this real thing and about how she said she liked him brings those savored images fresh to his mind, all those late nights and afternoons watching Alisha.

"Don't talk about him that way," Alisha hisses.

Alisha naked, Alisha coming, Alisha saying how much he turns her own, Alisha's hands on him through his clothes, the feel of her body with just thin sheets between them, the smell of her. Alisha in vivid, explicit, specific detail. Simon replays in his mind a particularly inventive afternoon involving her vibrator and Alisha saying a stream of hot, dirty things to him. The sounds she'd made, her face as she came. He's so lost in it he barely hears Nathan talking over his thoughts.

"He's my close friend! I was worried when I thought he was dead. I care deeply for the little bastard, and even I know you with him doesn't make any—"

"Oi, that's disgusting!" Kelly interrupts, wrinkling her nose at Simon. "I don't want to hear that."

"What'd you think?" Alisha glares at him.

Simon sputters. "I didn't mean to. My mind just sort of wandered."

"Wandered to what?" Nathan demands hopefully. "What disgusting thing did it wander to?"

"That's private," Alisha snaps at him. "You can't go thinking about that in front of Kelly."

"Yeah mate, don't ever," Kelly gags.

"I'm sorry," Simon crumples.

"WHAT?" He turns to Simon, "Did you piss on her tits?"

"No," Simon says, horrified.

Nathan whines, "For the love of Jesus's ballsack, what?"

"You don't want to know," Kelly complains. "I'll never get that out me mind. Ugh."

"Somebody tell me!"

"They wank off in front of each other and it's dead filthy, yeah? Way worse than it was with her and Curtis."

"I wish we could switch powers," Nathan pouts at Kelly.

"Me too," she takes a long drink of her beer.

"It's not disgusting," Alisha interjects. "And it isn't public information. So stop reading our minds."

"Won't happen again, yeah? I don't need to know about that."

"No, you don't," Alisha wipes down the bar furiously.

"Tell me everything," Nathan begs Simon.

"You can tell him about it, or you can have a chance of actually doing it again," Alisha gives Simon a look he's already decided is never worth crossing.

"I'll never say a word. I wouldn't think about it in front of Kelly ever again. I just couldn't help it," he says in a rush.

"I can't believe it," Nathan cries. "I'm the one who didn't get any? Me? Weird kid gets with her, and I can't even have a go with you!" he says to Kelly, who makes a face. "You shagged a gorilla!" He puts his head on the bar. "The last woman I had sex with was eighty-two. I'm losing it."

"Maybe you never had it," Alisha suggests.

She's going to kill me, worries Simon.

"And you," she leans into Simon's ear, "can make it up to me later, so long as you don't think about it for the rest of the night."

Easier said than done, but he manages. Mostly.

"I'm happy for you, really," Kelly says an hour into the evening. "But I think I need to go home, take some showers. One for me, one for each of you," she waves a finger from Simon to Alisha.

"I wasn't thinking anything," Simon says, confused.

"Not you, mate," says Kelly. "That's wrong, that is," she says, and shakes her head.

Alisha looks admonished and excuses herself to get limes from the back. She definitely should not have thought about his mouth on her nipple through her shirt, his hands on her ass, that look in his eye, how it felt to be watched by him. And especially not what she had planned for later.

As soon as her shift is over, Alisha and Simon head out to a chorus of sexual harassment from Nathan. Curtis comes in as Nathan yells something about Simon's cock in Alisha's armpit.

"What's he on about?" Curtis asks.

"Your ex is doing filthy things with Barry!"

"How many free drinks did you give him?" he glares at Alisha.

"Two," she says firmly and decides to be honest. "Look, Simon and I have been seeing each other. There are no powers involved. We're going now. Goodnight."

"Wait a minute—" Curtis objects, but Alisha hurries by with a tight-lipped Simon close behind. She'll hear about it later from Curtis, but that could wait.

Back at Simon's flat, Alisha doesn't criticize his mental slip in front of their mind-reading friend. Instead, she takes off her coat and her boots, and lies down.

"What were you thinking about?" she asks.

"What you look like when you come," he answers. "Mostly. I'm sorry."

"It was going to come out eventually," she shrugs. "I couldn't keep my mind off you either."

"Yeah?" he smiles.

"Yeah." She wants to tell him she loves him. It's stupid, she thinks. It'll scare him maybe if she gets all feelings-y.

"I love it," he says shyly, "The way you look when you…"

"Touch myself?"

"And when you come. I didn't think you could be more beautiful, but you are."

She wants to call him cheesy, but instead, she looks down at the bedsheet between them. "Simon?"

"Yes?"

"I love you."

"I love you too," he exhales. Finally, he thinks, I finally get to say it.

She smiles. A week later, she moves in.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

For the next month they float along, happy, everything new and delightful. Clashing habits don't matter. The fact that they can't touch doesn't matter. Every day they lie next to each other. Sometimes they keep clothes on and rock against each other. Sometimes they touch and suck on each other as best they can through clothes or sheets. Sometimes he uses Alisha's toy on her. Creativity is key, they decide. Their love feels magic.

They are careful not to touch, which sometimes is maddening and sometimes feels almost normal. When they do by accident—the back of her bare hand bumping against his when they're walking, him misjudging where her shirt ended—it's the same as it always has been with him: Simon says something bizarre and disturbing, but doesn't try to grab her. For the first time, she wonders what that's about. Before she had any, uh, first hand knowledge of Simon as a sexual being, she assumed that her power was sort of like truth serum: it revealed and enhanced people's desires, and then pointed them in her direction. But then sex with future-Simon hadn't been anything he'd shouted when affected by her power, and sex (sex-ish?) with present-Simon didn't involve pee or armpit fetishes either. She wondered if those kinks were gone. Or had they ever existed?

Even in the loved up, blissed out honeymoon stage, is there ever a good way to ask your boyfriend why he said he wanted to piss on your tits and fuck your hairy armpit? Not a question she'd ever thought she'd need answered, but here she is. One afternoon Alisha tries sort of a round about way of asking. She asks if they can watch porn together.

Simon soothes his hair down uncomfortably. She realizes he hadn't done that in a while now. He stammers an objection.

"Come on, it'd be fun," she coaxes.

"What do you want to watch?" he answers, obviously unconvinced.

"What do you like to look at?" she asks. Her brilliant plan.

"I don't want to watch that with you," Simon shakes his head.

"Why not?"

"It's embarrassing."

"Is it kinky or something?"

"No. Why does everyone assume I'm a pervert?" His face twists up, angry and hurt. Brilliant plan? Not so brilliant.

"Simon," she says gently, and puts an arm around his waist. "I don't think that. And even if you did like that…"

"Is this because of those things I said when you touched me? I didn't mean them. I don't even remember saying them."

"I know," she says, but of course, that's exactly what it's about. "But I do wonder why do you think you said those things and not, you know, just 'I want to shag you,' or whatever?"

He shakes his head. "I don't want that. I don't even look at that kind of thing." The way he says it, though, it sounds like there's something else that he needs to add. She waits, but he doesn't say anything else.

"But?" she prompts.

He flops back on the bed. "It's humiliating."

She stretches out next to him. "I love you. I'm your girlfriend. No weird thing you maybe wanked off to is going to change that."

"It's not that." He looks away. "The summer before I started high school, my friend Matt, his parents put all sorts of blocks on his computer so he couldn't watch porn. So he would come over to mine. Sometimes he'd try to find outrageous things and leave them on my computer. It was a stupid joke. I started trying find even more bizarre porn and leaving on there for him. We'd try to out do each other. Some of the images… We laughed about it. We shouldn't have. It was the sort of things I say to you when you touch me. Men pissing on women like that. That sort of thing." He finally looks at Alisha's eyes, which are kind. "And then we got to high school and Matt stopped speaking to me, it was another thing to bully me about. He told everyone I liked those things. Everyone said I was a pervert. For years."

"Oh, Simon," she says sympathetically.

"Don't feel sorry for me."

Unsure what to say, she puts her palm over his heart.

"So what do you actually like to look at?" she asks finally.

"Normal things," he says defensively.

"What I'm saying is, we could still watch porn and it could be fun."

"I thought you were just trying to figure out why I said those things."

"Maybe I was," she shrugs. "But now I want to wank off with you and see what gets you going."

"You get me going," he insists, putting a hand over her clothed arm.

She rolls her eyes. "I _know_. But what else? I promise to be nice about it."

They compromise. He shows her a video on his computer—nothing objectionable really, except that it's stupid and typical. His porn is just pretty girls groping each other and then getting fucked by a standard-issue gross porn guy. It's boring, she thinks. They don't have fake boobs and the girls seem like they're maybe actually having a good time, but that's about it. She's nice about it and Simon seems relieved.

After about ten minutes of it, Alisha volunteers to find something he might like. It takes some searching, but she finds an okay video. There are two girls at the beginning, having what seems to be real sex rather than a fake, exaggerated version for the camera. One girl snaps on a latex glove and starts easing fingers into the other girl's pussy when the guy shows up and starts going down on the girl whose genitals don't have a hand inside them.

Alisha literally slaps her forehead. "Gloves!" she exclaims.

"What?" Simon seems pretty into the video and not focused on her new, much more brilliant plan.

"Latex gloves," she points to the screen. "Think those might work?"

His eyes pop open. "Why didn't we think of that before?"

She shrugs. "Want to go buy some now?"

It turns out you can buy latex medical gloves more places than you think, in different sizes. Alisha snaps hers on first and practically tears Simon's clothes off. She runs her gloved hands all over his body. Does he look so uncomfortable that he's practically wincing? Yes. Alisha pauses and gives him some space.

"Does it feel good?" she asks.

He nods, fixes his hair, which she had just raked her fingers through.

"So why do you look so miserable?" she says, forcing herself to sound playful.

"I think I'd rather if I could touch you first," he says sheepishly. "I've been waiting a long time."

She almost says that she's been waiting just as long, but realizes that isn't true. She's touched him before, future him anyway. He's never touched her except through clothes and bedsheets. Besides, should she really complain about being touched by Simon?

"You get dressed. I'll get undressed," she says, pulling the gloves off and wiggling out of her clothes.

Once their positions are reversed, Simon tries to touch her just the way she's said she likes. He's gentle moving his palms over her arms, her legs, squeezing her hips with his fingers, brushing his thumb across her cheek. He gets lost playing with her breasts.

"You look so happy," she giggles.

"I am," he says, realizing for maybe the first time that he is, in his life, actually happy, maybe for the first time really.

"Me too. Want to make me really happy?" she coos.

His mouth goes dry. "Yes." More than anything, he thinks. And he does what she wants.

Afterward, she thinks about he noticed everything. He paid attention. And it makes her hotter to know that he actually really has been listening all this time. _I had a good teacher. You._ That she taught him this, how to please her, turns her on. She remembers a conversation they had long ago, before he found the flat, back in her old bedroom. Back when she was diligently getting to know him, asking him loads of questions, and he first started asking her questions in return. She told him about her favorite class in college, one she hadn't skipped almost ever, an art history class of all stupid things. And he listened and looked in her eyes and asked her opinion about street art moving into mainstream art, and then actually listened to her thoughts, and asked relevant follow up questions. It was one of the first real conversations they had, one of the first times present-day Simon was deeply appealing to her. She wouldn't have noticed it before her power, but being actually listened to, being related to as an intelligent, interesting, good person as a turn-on. He wasn't flirting, wasn't trying to charm her. She thought, _I'm being treated with respect. I don't have to prove I'm something beyond pretty or sexy, because he already believes I am._ She wanted to climb on top of him right then.

And of course she thinks of the first time he called her beautiful. _Sometimes I think it's difficult for beautiful girls; people don't see past their looks._ She loved his earnestness, his sincerity, and the way he saw her: as a person, not as a thing. This is someone who actually listens to me, she realized quickly, and doesn't just look. Here is someone who takes me seriously, whether I'm expressing an opinion or buying him a drink or telling him how to get me off. She looks at his face, and feels something bigger than desire start clenching inside her.

Simon realizes, after she's had her turn and he's had his, that giving a girl pleasure a better feeling than anyone tells you. It's not just a turn-on, seeing her come, (though it obviously is that), it's also feels magic to get her off. To actually bring her off, because of what he did, he can't help feeling proud and powerful and content with his life.

She lies on his chest and he touches her face. They both still have gloves on. She remembers it with her skin, that this is exactly how future-him touched her face. Will touch her face. She remembers the feel of his skin on hers, and for a second she's heartbroken with how close they are to being able to touch skin to skin. Almost, but not quite.

"I really wish I could kiss you," she says, biting her lower lip.

"Me too." Alisha runs a finger over his lips, and he kisses it, sucks her fingers into his mouth, kisses all of her gloved hand that he can.

"Like the gloves?" she asks.

He nods. He looks beautiful, she thinks. He's been working out, lifting weights, and all that stupid pakour, so now his body is almost as it was when she first saw him like this. She puts a hand over his naked chest for a minute before she takes her gloves off.

They dress, and he spoons her in their bed and compliments her good thinking. It's all nice pillow talk, and then he asks, anxiously, "Do you think condoms would work as well?"

She shakes her head, her curls brushing his face as she does. "There'd still be other exposed skin."

"I could keep my trousers on."

"And keep you balls inside your pants? No. What if it slides around? Or breaks?" She looks at his hand on her arm. "I don't want any chance that you won't remember it. I want it to be special, like it was." Immediately, she regrets saying it and feels him tense up. "Like it is now, like this," she adds, but he doesn't relax.

"I just want to make you happy," he says sadly. "And I know you miss sex, the sex you had with him."

"With _you_," she insists and turns around to face him. "And you do make me happy. This, right now, makes me happy."

"I think it's not enough for you," he admits.

She wants to roll her eyes. The insecurity sometimes annoys her, but she tries to soothe him through it. "I love you. This is the best relationship I've ever been in. I am happy with the sex that we have now, and I'm going to be happy with the sex we will have when we figure out a way around my bullshit power. Is this enough for you?"

"Yes," he says quickly. "I never imagined I could be with someone like you."

"Good," she snaps. After a beat she says, "Condoms would work for blowjobs though."

He shakes his head.

"You don't want me to? Were you not there when I demonstrated what I got done for?"

"I want you to. I really want you to," he says, memory of Alisha with a bottle still giving him a jolt. "But not if I can't…give to you that way."

She runs her fingers over his hair, careful not to get too close to his scalp. "Aren't you generous," she teases.

"It isn't fair the other way," he insists.

"I guess there are these dental dam things," she says. "They're like latex you have to hold over me, and maybe then we could try."

"Good," he says.

She stares at his lips, and he catches her looking.

"But there's no way around the kissing?" he asks softly.

"Not that I can think of," she says sadly.

He twists a finger in her curls. "I love you, Alisha."

"I love you too."

For tonight, they pretend that is enough.

Their sex life expands to include watching each other and touching each other with latex gloves. The attempts at oral sex are less successful, and they both say that can wait, not saying how disappointed they both are. She tries not to think about how much she misses the feel of his skin, and he tries not to wonder about how she tastes, and both of them avoid talking about what they can't have.

Everybody accepts it, after some initial cautioning from a suspicious Curtis and some practice not thinking about sex in front of Kelly. Simon's parents are annoyingly delighted and Alisha's parents are cautious at first and then decide that he is a good influence. They both work, Simon starts working out and running around on buildings (to less than ideal results, but he insists), and mostly Alisha thinks he looks quite fit. Everything is good.

Until, of course, it isn't. They have a fight about something stupid, after he gets hurt with the parkour bullshit. Simon gives in right away, which makes Alisha madder. When she cools down, and Simon apologizes for the millionth time, she admits something to herself. She loves him and doesn't want him to get hurt on some mission to become somebody else. She doesn't want him to go back, to die in her arms, to travel through time, to save anybody. She wants them to be normal and happy and free of all the powers and bullshit. And she does really, really, really miss kissing him. Touching him. The sex. All of that.

She sees the sign right before Christmas, the sign offering what she's missing. For a moment, she thinks maybe everything will be fine.


End file.
